Global standards developer and certifying body Idealliance has released the new PrintWide profile to support global print alignment across all print technologies and workflows. “The new PrintWide colour profile has two primary functions: as a universal translation space AND a saturation booster for high fidelity printing while still preserving G7 alignment.”
“PrintWide is an extremely large-gamut CMYK dataset designed to encompass the gamut of virtually all inks or colorants in all known colour printing systems,” said a statement from the company’s headquarters in Virginia, USA. “The PrintWide dataset’s gamut includes the effect of typical “extended-gamut” inks such as OGV (Orange, Green and Violet) or RGB (Red Green and Blue) often used in ink-jet, flexo or offset printing.
"As a CMYK “translation space, PrintWide can convert highly saturated originals (usually RGB) without losing colour fidelity. When the final printing method is not known, converting first into PrintWide optimizes the important gamut compression function for wide-gamut printers and preserves virtually all the original’s colour information. By comparison, converting into a smaller profile irrevocably destroys some very saturated colour detail and accuracy. PrintWide as a universal translation space also allows wide-gamut CMYK images to be edited or assembled in design & prepress programs that typically cannot handle, or accurately display, images in more than four channels.
“PrintWide, as a ‘saturation booster’ profile, when assigned to a CMYK file intended for a medium-gamut printing process like offset, takes advantage of the higher colour saturation and contrast available on wider-gamut systems while maintaining a pleasing reproduction,” Idealliance said. “This can be useful when a client asks for ‘more colour’ or ‘more punch’ and does not need perfect colour accuracy.”
As part of a G7 based workflow, if the PrintWide.icc profile is assigned to an image that was originally converted to a G7 profile like GRACoL®, when that image is then converted to an actual wide-gamut printer’s space:
Perfect G7 tonality and gray balance will be maintained.
Pure whites and blacks will be stretched to the maximum contrast available on that printer without losing detail or altering overall lightness.
Saturated colours will be boosted without shifting their hues.
Critical memory colours – especially flesh tones – will be protected from over-saturation.
Idealliance members ($US95 a year) can download the new technical resource on the Idealliance website here.
The PrintWide Profile & Release Guide available on the Idealliance website includes an Introduction and Workflow Guide, Read Me, and the PrintWide ICC profile.
PrintWide and many of the leading industry initiatives provided by Idealliance are in part developed and contributed by Idealliance members of the Print Properties Committee.
David Crowther to lead Idealliance G7 colour training in ANZ
Earlier this month, Idealliance named David Crowther of Sydney’s Colour Graphic Services as one of 25 global certified G7 colour expert instructors to lead new training sessions on G7 based print and packaging applications.
